


Breaking Peggy

by keysburg



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Interrogation, Missing Scene, Sousa's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3607044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysburg/pseuds/keysburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel Sousa gives in and sets the SSR on Peggy's trail, leading to her interrogation.  Takes place during the episodes A Sin to Err and SNAFU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Peggy

When Sheldon McFee confirmed that it had been Peggy who beat him and tied him to a chair, Daniel’s heart sank. There was too much evidence stacked against her now, and he’d have to tell the chief.

After that things moved quickly. The chief had okayed her to investigate the potential behind Leviathan having sent a female assassin to kill Krzeminski. But if Peggy had been the brunette on the boat… that meant that she had tangled with Zandow. Zandow, who had been in Krzeminski’s custody when Krzeminski died. Was Peggy in so deep that she had killed Zandow and Krzeminski, to prevent the SSR from learning of her involvement? Sousa didn’t know, but the upshot was that they had no idea where Peggy was right now. She could be investigating a female assassin… or she could be further manipulating the situation. They sent a few men to her usual haunts then. One went to the Griffith Hotel, where she had moved recently. Another to the bar where SSR agents liked to go after work, and a third to the L&L Automat.

She showed up at the L&L for lunch and the team moved out. Jack sent the team in to grab her but positioned himself in the back alley, ordering Daniel to stay in the car. Sousa agreed with Jack the team was unlikely to do anything but flush Peggy into the alley. The front of the building was already covered by plenty of other agents. So Daniel got out of the car and waited on the side of the building, where he could back up Jack if need be.

It turned out it was needed after all. Not two minutes after they started 791, Peggy came pelting out of the back of the automat. Sousa listened as Jack tried to convince her to come in. She would, wouldn’t she? She wasn’t actually working against them, and it would be easier to explain. Jack was persuasive. The sound of a fist hitting flesh made his blood run cold. Had Thompson hit her? The voices he heard after were Peggy’s and another man’s, not Jack. He willed steel into his spine and strode the best he could with his crutch to arrest Carter.

“There’s more to this than you know.”

“You won’t shoot me.”

“I’m sorry Daniel.”

Her words rang in his ears as he went to get Jack off the ground and moving. She hadn’t looked back at him as she ran away. He knew it was true, she was up to something. He knew it was true, she only saw him as a co-worker, and not the man she could confess to.

And now here they were, staring at each other across the table in the interrogation room. In the end it hadn’t mattered that he hesitated to shoot her when it was his job to stop her. They were here, and he could break her. He started with the dead bodies. If she killed Krzeminski, she could turn on any one of them. Even him. But when he accused her of it, he watched her grow cold, remote. Throwing his professional ambitions back at him like an accusation. “You’ve assembled a solid bit of evidence here. And I understand you never get to run this far with the ball…” If she hadn’t killed Krzeminski, he would have expected a different reaction. More emotion, not this cool response. Although Carter always played it cool when she knew people could see. She only let her soft side show when no one was watching, like the time he caught her in the records room, tearing up over Steve Rogers’ file.

And now she brought up her supposed investigation, into the female assassin. A derailment tactic or honest intelligence? He couldn’t tell. The chief had authorized her investigation into the matter, he might have more information. He gave the codeword for conference, “Coffee.”

Carter had never brought the chief any evidence the female assassin was real. Dooley found it convenient that she had a name and a description now, and seemed certain she was lying. They began to trade off, each using their individual interrogation styles. Daniel attempted to use his anger. It was not something anyone at the SSR was used to seeing, and he hoped it would unbalance her. Her relationship with Stark was a betrayal, and Daniel thought she might have enough feeling for him that she’d admit it to him, and realize the foolishness of the path she had been walking. But she met him head on, insisting that they were wrong about Howard… and wrong about what she still referred to as her “investigation” instead of her betrayal.

Not that Jack was any better using his relationship with Carter against her. He tried to leverage Russia against her and Daniel watched her mock him, challenge him to hit her like Jack had with other interrogation subjects, and threaten violence to him in return. This was Carter’s mask. She had brass balls as big as anyone in that bullpen, and she was using them successfully as a defense against every tactic they tried. The only chink in her armor was when they brought up the sphere. Every time they asked her about it, she fell silent or changed the subject.

In the end, she used their techniques against them, summarizing their attempts to manipulate her with cutting words. Jack’s offer of a deal to give up Stark became his rescue of the damsel in distress. Daniel’s attempt at making her see Stark’s manipulation made her accuse him of seeing her now as a “daft whore.” It was embarrassing to hear her acknowledge his attention as “putting her on a pedestal” in front of the other men. She had noticed his attention after all, and while it hurt to hear it described that way, the description of “daft whore” had come straight from her. That is how she saw the other women in Stark’s life, and whatever else had happened, Daniel was now sure that she hadn’t fallen into Stark’s influence by falling into his bed.

Jack’s attempt to make a more credible threat of possible violence was met with yet more obstination. Carter would never be swayed by threats of violence. Even if Jack were to hit her, she’d bear it. Daniel knew this was a woman who had seen real pain. Real physical pain, if her medical records were anything to go by, and real emotional pain, given her continued grief over Steve Rogers. There had to be something… there was something about the sphere. But how to get her to talk about it?

Daniel’s feverish thinking was broken by the announcement that Edwin Jarvis had arrived, with a confession on behalf of Howard Stark.


End file.
